Play posits Freud, C.S. Lewis dialogue

Monday

Jul 26, 2010 at 6:00 AMJul 26, 2010 at 3:07 PM

By Jennifer Farrar THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Imagining believable conversations between famous historical figures is not easy, but Mark St. Germain has created a lively, plausible and provocative 1939 dialogue between Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis in his witty new off-Broadway play, “Freud’s Last Session.”

With Europe in turmoil on the brink of World War II, the two great intellectuals — the elderly and ailing, world-renowned psychoanalyst and the youthful Oxford professor, an atheist turned Christian — go head to head in the dynamic, often-comical production, tightly directed by Tyler Marchant, performing at the Marjorie S. Deane Theater.

The iconic pair are very well portrayed, with Martin Rayner as a wryly cranky, 83-year-old Freud, and Mark H. Dold as the confident, poised Lewis, at the time a 41-year-old scholar and author whose fame was growing.

The actors portray their legendary characters as fiercely analytical, yet down-to-earth. Both seem genuinely pleased to be speaking with an intellectual equal, even if they disagree about almost everything.

Freud has invited Lewis to his home for a discussion because the younger man’s religious conversion absolutely confounds him. Freud tells Lewis that he wants to learn why a man of his intellect “could suddenly abandon truth and embrace an insidious lie,” and says that Lewis must be “the victim of either a conversion experience or a hallucinatory psychosis.” The younger man is unfazed, having recently boldly satirized the eminent Dr. Freud in his own writing.

Their profound, often touching conversation, while primarily a debate about the existence of God, also covers other major philosophical issues, such as the nature of love, morality and sex before marriage. Yet St. Germain, who got the idea for his play from the book “The Question of God,” by Armand M. Nicholi Jr., also includes personal discussions that humanize the two men.

While Freud is often irate, Lewis disagrees with his negative ideas, yet examines each issue. In the context of news bulletins about Hitler invading Poland, Freud says irately, “Which of Christ’s ’teachings’ are even realistic? Love our neighbor as ourselves? It’s a foolish impossibility! Turn the other cheek? Should Poland turn the other cheek to Hitler? Should they love their neighbors as German tanks crush their homes?”

On the question of why God allowed evil to remain in the world, Lewis says thoughtfully, “If God is good, He would make His creatures perfectly happy. But we aren’t. So God lacks either goodness, or power or both.”